While our trails and grounds are closed for the season, our education staff is gearing up for a busy spring. Field trips and enrichment activities are being scheduled with a focus on data literacy through long-term monitoring.

This past summer Cary's Steward Pickett was a Visiting International Professor at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences in Beijing. The center is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and home to the State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology.

In the U.S. alone, some 15 million tons of salt is applied to our roadways each year. While its use has real benefits, in terms of safety and navigation, there have been cumulative costs to the environment.

In September, I arrived in Millbrook as the new president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. During the past two months, I’ve met with staff to better learn what we do and where we do it. The meetings have been spectacular.

In March, 2014, the Obama Administration launched the Climate Data Initiative. The initiative marshals data from a vast trove of governmental and non-governmental sources to inform decision making and ensure that our nation’s communities and businesses are more resilient to climate change.

Cary-led research has found that antibacterials, such as triclosan, have made their way into the American water system and are fueling the development of drug-resistant bacteria. And there are human health-related reasons to avoid their use in our daily lives.

More and more often, we hear about the arrival of a foreign plant or insect that is wreaking havoc on our native ecosystems. Take, for example, the Emerald Ash Borer, which will likely decimate all the ash trees in our forests.

Mice, chipmunks and shrews are welcoming hosts for the bacteria ticks spread. They're plentiful. They're low to the ground, so ticks can easily hop aboard. And they lack the immune systems that might compromise any infectious agents.

Podcast Any time there are high flow events bringing water and sediments from the tributaries and over the dam, it causes several fairly dramatic changes. Podcast interview with freshwater ecologist Dr. Stuart Findlay.

Vicky Kelly, manager of the environmental monitoring program at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook said trees have evolved methods for coping with our winters over thousands of years, the biggest trigger of which is shortened days.